As a method for forming a rubber member in pneumatic tires, there is known a strip-winding technique using an unvulcanized rubber strip. According to the technique, the rubber strip is continuously wound around a surface of the wound body as a tire former or the like in a tire circumferential direction to form an annular rubber member (for example, a tread rubber, a sidewall rubber, or the like). In the strip-winding technique, various cross-section shapes can be obtained by changing the winding pitch of the rubber strip or the number of times when the rubber strip is wound.
Patent Literature 1 shown below proposes a rubber strip-forming apparatus (a) for use in the strip-winding technique as illustrated in FIG. 9. The forming apparatus (a) is configured to stick a rubber strip G with a high accuracy on the surface of a wound body (b) of a non-straight cylindrical shape such as a drum shape, for example. The forming apparatus (a) includes a rubber strip transport conveyor (c).
Specifically, the forming apparatus (a) includes:
(1) a lateral moving means (gx) that moves the transport conveyor (c) laterally along an X-axis direction parallel to an axis (bi) of the wound body (b);
(2) a vertical moving means (gy) that moves the transport conveyor (c) forward or backward toward the wound body (b) along a Y-axis direction; and
(3) a turning means (gz) that turns the transport conveyor (c) around an axis (Zi) in the vertical Z-axis direction.
Accordingly, even when the wound body (b) has a non-straight cylindrical profile, a guide roller (e) positioned on the foremost side in the transport direction of the transport conveyor (c) can be freely inclined in accordance with the profile. This makes it possible to stick the rubber strip G with a high accuracy without causing wrinkles or large distortion such as uneven stretch.
According to this structure, however, the long transport conveyor (c) entirely turns around the vertical axis (Zi). This requires a large space for the turning, which makes it difficult to install the forming apparatus adjacent to another forming apparatus. In addition, in the inside area of the turning radius, the work area for workers needs to be significantly limited due to a fear of collision with the transport Conveyor©, which leads to a disadvantage in work efficiency.